Linux and filesystem experts, I need your help. A while back, I started looking at installing Ubuntu after discussing various options with Stuart Langridge. I’ve subsequently burned 3 different releases of said OS to DVD, up to and including the latest 6.06 LTS x64 version. Playing with the live CD on a few occassions has convinced me that it is the right idea: it’s a tidy little Linux distro that gets out of your way until you want to really start messing around with it. I have not, however, installed it yet for two reasons. Primarily, it has taken me a fair amount of time to investigate everything I needed to know about Ubuntu before being happy with it, making sure I’ve thought through any potential problems. I’m glad I did that because I’ve hit a real problem, which brings me to my second reason.

My computer is an AMD64x2 based machine with two 200Gb SATA drives, both of which were formatted as NTFS volumes. The first of those is the boot drive, which contains installed programs and games and has almost 125Gb free. The secondary drive is my data drive, containing video, music, pictures, websites and a whole load of other application data I don’t want to lose. It is full, give or take a few gigs.

The problem is the data drive. I want a volume that I can read and write from either windows or linux (Mac support would be nice, but not essential) but, as the drive is NTFS, the linux support is poor for writing and this is data I don’t want to lose. I’ve been giving it some thought and have a few ideas:

1. Long, bitty migration. I could offload a good chunk of the data drive to the non-data drive, create a new partition on the data drive (in the new freespace) with a better filesystem (whiche one), migrate the data back to that partition, and repeat with the other section. This strikes me as potentially messy.
2. The Linux-NTFS project. Although they now have NTFS support, it’s at the expense of “speed and stability”. I don’t know if that’s a worthwhile trade-off.
3. Checking out NTFS for linux. I’d be willing to pay for the software if it safely met my needs, but I am not sure it will.

Of course, those options all miss a key point: the data drive is absolutely full. I will need more space at some point though the largely free non-data drive can be used for now, so this might be a perfect opportunity. I think (though I am not sure) my motherboard, an Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, only has two SATA slots and that makes just shoving in another disk tricky. So I’m also looking towards NAS solutions:

1. Buying a NAS box from Infrant. It’s quite a cost up front to get even a diskless NAS box, but it’s the sort of investment that might be worth it. While I’m wary that nothing will be compatible forever, an ethernet-accessed blackbox with upgradeable firmware seems like a safe bet for at least the medium term. Cost might be an issue, but I’m also not sure about all the access issues. Presumably it uses some standard access protocol (Samba-based most likely), but it’s been a while since I have looked at the issues around network storage.
2. Build my own NAS box based on FreeNAS. This would be a fun little project, but I’m not sure it would be any cheaper than buying a more sophisticated box given a) the cost of components, b) time taken, c) reliability, d) feature set, and e) lifespan.

So, gentle readers, have I missed an obvious or better option? Do these options look good? Which is best? Are they problems I have overlooked? All comments and suggestions welcome.

I’ve previously written about open source project home pages and thought it was about time to look at another one, namely the Banshee Project: a Linux-based music player and organiser which takes heavy inspiration (and features) from iTunes.

Most aspects of the site are spot on. The design is clean and friendly, the content is well organised and the copy used helpful and concise. Best example is the opening line from the front page:

With Banshee you can easily import, manage, and play selections from your music collection.

That’s how you sell a product: a clean, and simple explanation of the benefits it aims to provide. After a few more sentences to explain additional functionality, it allows new users to look at more information via a “Read more” link, and continues with download details, bug channels, mailing lists and other details more experienced users are looking for. That’s near impeccable flow in design.

The main thing the site gets wrong is the download links: they are below the page fold and/or poorly labelled. “View this release” and “Getting Started” are not what people are looking for; they want a link that says “Download”. Put that in somewhere above the fold, and make the download experience as painless as possible (one-click to get the executable) and you’ve got a marked improvement. Admittedly this is more difficult for a Linux application than a Windows one, given differences in distros, but it should be easier than it currently is.

All-in-all, a good example of an open-source project that is getting it (mostly) right.

I find it interesting how much more obsessive a small group of people (designers and technology types) are about small aesthetic details in interactive devices than the vast majority of people who use them.

For example, give most people a computer keyboard and they will be content to just use it, regardless of whether it’s a bog standard model or a bizarrely contoured model. Those few others, though, can tell if the keyboard is any good by putting their hands on it for a few seconds. They’ve been using computers long enough to know what a keyboard should feel like from the layout of the board, to the size of the keys, to the relative heights of keys. Lots of little details that just click into place. I can’t tell you the number of discussions I’ve had with various lunatics about whether clicky keys (think an old-school Spectrum keyboard) are best or gummy silent keys are superior (the answer is clearly neither, you want quiet keys that have a good responsive action). I don’t think anyone can explain the horror felt by one of these people when asked to use a mouse that is too small, doesn’t have a wheel (I personally CANNOT do it), or only has one button (Mac users of yesteryear, you are wrong).

Is this ridiculous compulsive behaviour a bad thing? No. We represent the top end of the market, everything is shaped by us. It’s because we care about the details that no-one else really has to.

Today was a bit of a surreal experience. I got an email from myself, from a year ago. I had forgotten about it, but I found a website called Future Me and promptly sent myself an email.

Dear FutureMe,

Don’t know whether you’ll remember sending this, but you did. Today is 8th May 2005 and you just found a site called futureme that lets you email yourself at a date in the future. I’m sending this a year into the future.

What’s going on with you? Today is the day before our first exam of fourth year (Information Retrieval), the start of 3 weeks of hell. There’s no point in lying to you: I think we’re fucked for these exams. We need to get a 2:1 to get the job with [BigCo]. Did you get it? It’s looking unlikely from here.

Where is your life now? Right now, you’re back living at home but are barely ever actually there, beyond the occassional sleep and breakfast. You’ve been focussing on this university stuff but still fucking it up.

You’re in a 5-piece band called “[Awful Band Name]”. It’s still a bit rough, but we’re getting better.

Umm, not sure what else to say. Brain is in study mode (in that its what I’m thinking about, but not actually doing). Good luck, hope you’re doing better than me.

Best Regards,

G.

Receiving that was both amusing and a bit disconcerting: I got what I needed so I am working for [BigCo], I’m living away from home and spending about as much time in my flat as I did at home (i.e. I sleep here sometimes), and I’m no longer in that band (we never got all that much better). It’s good to be out of “study mode” knowing that I never need to go through that again.

Definitely another few getting sent into the future. Worth a go

In less than one hour from now, the time will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. There is no greater point or meaning here, just an observation of a moment with little significance that will pass by while we sleep. Good night.